1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to doweling jigs in general, and more particularly, to a clamp-type doweling jig for locating in-line holes to be drilled in a wooden workpiece.
2) Description of the Prior Art
Doweling jigs for drilling corresponding holes in mating wooden workpieces, and thereby making possible the matching of these holes for the insertion of dowels and thus, the joining of the wooden workpieces in a desired engagement, are known. The engagements accommodate edge-to-edge, end-to-edge, edge-to-face, end-to-end and mitered joints.
Attempts have been made in the past to develop a better doweling jig. U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,307, dated Apr. 18 1995 and granted to Park for a "Doweling Jig" discloses a device having upper and lower clamping assemblies which move with respect to each other via a thrust screw assembly. Park's device has a number of shortcomings. First, two wooden workpieces are clamped together, one of which has previously been drilled, and in which dowels are installed through alignment slots, provided in the upper clamping assembly. As can be seen, there is a dependency on a previously drilled workpiece. Second, the device is provided, besides drill guides, with alignment slots and with guide slides between the upper and lower clamping assemblies. Thus, the jig described therein appears to be complicated, expensive to make and limited in use, since it has only two drill guides.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,442, dated Dec. 20, 1983 and granted to Lindblad for a "Doweling Jig" discloses a device which comprises two clamping jaw and drill guide assemblies, each of these assemblies having a clamping face and a drill guide which is immovable with respect to the clamping face. This device can be considered to have several disadvantages. In making use of the device in drilling corresponding pairs of dowel receiving holes in the two edges of two wooden workpieces, the latter must first be clamped together by a clamping fixture. Then, the doweling jig is clamped to the wooden workpieces, so that the drill guides are juxtaposed to the edges. After each two opposite dowel receiving holes are drilled, the device is unclamped, moved to the next opposite pair of dowel receiving holes and re-clamped.
As can be seen from the above patents, the disclosed devices are not easy to work with, require frequent set-ups and are thus, not quick to use, and also require measurements, due to the limited number of drill guides.